Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Dear Bastards: Demand Equality!
The following is an article of mine that appears in the Bastard Qaurterly Vol 8, No 1 Spring/Summer 2006, as a POINT/COUNTERPOINT
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
-R. Buckminster Fuller
-- A Boston-area couple was awarded $409,000 after a jury found an adoption agency failed to disclose medical records of the birthmother before they adopted their now severely disabled twins.
-- Belinda Ramirez, 24, was arrested and charged with several counts of fraud for allegedly meeting parents online who were looking to adopt a baby and claiming she had one to give away.
Both of these news stories, besides being about adoption, are also about lies. Lie are so unacceptable in our culture, they often constitute a crime that is punishable by jail or fines.
Adoptees are lied to, and yet, instead of focusing on the lie and fraud committed with each falsified birth certificate, BN asks for adoption records to be “opened.” Using “open records” terminology (especially for “adults only”) is allowing your opposition to frame the argument and operating within their framework, thus accepting and condoning the position that is was right to falsify and seal birth certificates to begin with. Once you accept the language of the “other” in an argument you automatically give power to their paradigm. It is far more powerful to deny their reality and create your own, especially when yours is that you are lied to.
Adoptees’ rights are not taken away when original birth certificates “sealed.” Your right to know to know the truth of your lives is taken when the state commits fraud and issues falsified birth certificates stating that you were “born to” people you are not biologically related to. This lie that your whole life is based on, puts your very life in danger. If one’s adoptive parents choose not to tell them that they are adopted, they could live all their lives and never even know there is an original birth certificate to try to obtain! Where is the equality in that? Conversely, adoptive parents who need or want to find birthfamily are also legally prohibited from doing so.
“Open records” terminology fails to attack the issue at its root: the issuance of the falsified birth certificate. BN won’t settle for anything but a “clean bill.” Vetoes and registries and all other restrictions, compromises, and limits on your rights are rejected…yet BN materials ONLY ask for “the opening [of records] to adoptees, upon request at age of majority.” Asking to be “allowed” “permission” to “peek” at the truth as adults gives a stamp of approval that this is “adult material,” something shameful, scary, and undercover that needs “protecting.” It’s like the civil rights movement having been about drinking from water fountains and sitting toward the front of buses – instead of demanding full equality. No one, other than those who are adopted, is issued a FALSIFIED birth certificate.
George Lakoff, who teaches “framing” also teaches the power of metaphor. The very clear metaphor of “opening sealed records” is opening Pandora’s box. It evokes peering into something secretive and locked up from view; something “special” occurring just for adoptees, which is the opposite of seeking equality. The public needs to be aware what was done by constantly replacing the phrase “open records” with “falsified birth certificates” in all your writing.
In keeping the focus on your plight as a human rights issue,
bring public attention too to the fact that one of the reasons the US has not ratified the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child is because of pressure from baby brokers who profit from keeping adoptions secretive. This is shameful and should be brought to the attention of the public at every opportunity to make the clear connection that the right to the truth of your identity is not an emotional issue, as it is still seen, but rather a basic, internationally recognized, human right.
Focusing on the LIE of a falsified birth certificate, instead of a “secret” being sealed away, takes the wind out of the argument of “protecting” another’s’ “privacy” as we do not protect lies. Exposing falsified birth certificates would be a shock to most people with no connection to, or knowledge of, adoption and would garner far more support than opening up, uncovering, a “secret” that might (allegedly) hurt someone. It brings much more sympathy to you as a discriminated against class of people, and does not pit you against mothers who allegedly have a stake in maintaining a secret or “seal.”
Why should adopted people continue to wait until they are told they are adopted and then wait until they are adults to have access to something that should be theirs to start with? Why couldn’t those adopted have a birth certificate like anyone else AND an adoption decree attached to it, with access to them both at any time other people in the same state are allowed access to theirs? Nothing short of that gives you true equality, so why settle for less?
Your birth certificates were not amended, they were falsified. Amended is defined as “to change for the better, improve.” When one of my sons (who I birthed and raised) was several months old, I changed his first name. I filed all the proper paperwork. For 32 years he has lived with a birth certificate that lists the first name I first gave him, with a line through it, and the new name written above it. Neither he nor I can obtain one that does not show the original name and the change. THAT is an amended certificate.
Accepting a lie is not in keeping with BN’s mission of being “dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees.”
Mirah Riben,
BN Lifetime member and author “shedding light …The Dark Side of Adoption”
The following are excerpts of the counterpoint was written by Rev. Laine Petersen, reunited adoptee, open adoption birthmother, and co-founder of BN:
"Let me start the response ...by stating that I am essentially in agreement with your call to end the amended/fasification of adoptees' birth certificates. I too beleive that the issuing [of] a new birth certificate is a dishonest practice that only contributes to the corruption of modern adoption. ...But... this reponse is about BN decided many years ago that it was going to fight for."
[NOTE: Even the Catholic Church changes course now and again - like not eating meat on Friday! However, the co-founder of BN does not disagree, just sticks to status quo...]
Petersen goes on to say that BN is "not a search group" - not that I had ever thought or said it was. No, it's allegedly a group that is fighting for the rights of adoptees. Isn't that what I was talking about - their right to a TRUE birth certificate?
Petersen continues: "Bastard Nation was founded with the goal of obtaining the one thing its members wanted: Our own damn birth certificates.
"We were not, and are not, going to get our own birth certifictes by championing your platform of 'one birth certificate - one bastard.' Our bith certificates have already been sealed, and a new policy regarding the 'amending' of birth certificates is not going to return them to us."
[I have no idea what she means by my platform of "one certificate - one bastard." Their way is one state at a time - my suggestion is nationally disallowing states to issue false certs to begin with. As for the fact that stopping the falsification of BCs would not help retrocatively, this is true. But it does not have to be an either/or. Why can't we do BOTH?]
WHY? Read on as Petersen gets to the root of the issue:
"...not every adoptee wants his/her adopted status stated on a document that has to be seen by so many people. Not every adoptee wants his/her “birth” identity made part of public record.”
So there you have it folks! BN is vested in protecting scerecy and lies. They are vested in protecting those who feel SHAME over their adoption.
That seems an odd priority for a group that is fighting for EQUAL rights and DIGNITY! It seems a direct contradiction to their goal of wanting things the same as those who are not adopted! It's a contradiction to them NOT being a search group, if all they want is their "information" when they are adults, with no conern about living a lie until then.
It's apparently OK to live your whole life under the false belief that you were born to your adoptive parents - until, if ever - your adopters decide to tell you. And if they don't - tough luck! You've lived and died a lie with no way of knowing that you have an original certificate to try to unseal. This is more acceptable than dealing with the horror of having someone know that you are really not the biological child of those raising you? WHY IS THAT?
How can they claim they are fighting for EQUALITY with non-adopted persons and accept birth certificates that can even give a FALSE date and place of birth?
As a mother who has supported open records, I am offended and greatly disappointed! I have encouraged mothers to come out of the closet and be public and do things like sign petitons and support legislation to give adoptees back their rights that were taken away. I designed the BirthParentProject.org to dispell the myth that [birth] mothers want anonymity...and all this time, it is the adoptees who want anonymity from us! I am offended, hurt and angry at this reply.
AND...I still think they are shooting themselves in the foot by asking for open records for adults anyhow, for all the reasons stated in my original article above.
THE SOLUTION: We all have short and long form birth certificates. In Scotland, the short form for adoptees appears the smae as anyone else's - it lists the adoptive parents as the parents. The long form indicates that they are adoptive parents. At age 16, adoptees have the right to obtain their original birth certificates. Before or after that, those that feel some stigma attached to being adopted "bastards" can use their short form for any legal purpose necessary.
In any case, why not ask for BOTH - an immediate end to falsification of bcs for all FUTURE adoptins, and retrocative return of access to the original for those adopted in the past?
I end with a question for the Reverend Laine Petersen: As a birthmother in an open adoption, would you be satisifed to wait until your chld was an adult to know him/her and vice versa??? Why then did you choose open adoption? Shouldn't every adoption be that way? Totally open? Truley open? Not built on lies?
Does your child know that he/she was not born to his/her adoptive parents? Does it cause him/her shame?
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
-R. Buckminster Fuller
-- A Boston-area couple was awarded $409,000 after a jury found an adoption agency failed to disclose medical records of the birthmother before they adopted their now severely disabled twins.
-- Belinda Ramirez, 24, was arrested and charged with several counts of fraud for allegedly meeting parents online who were looking to adopt a baby and claiming she had one to give away.
Both of these news stories, besides being about adoption, are also about lies. Lie are so unacceptable in our culture, they often constitute a crime that is punishable by jail or fines.
Adoptees are lied to, and yet, instead of focusing on the lie and fraud committed with each falsified birth certificate, BN asks for adoption records to be “opened.” Using “open records” terminology (especially for “adults only”) is allowing your opposition to frame the argument and operating within their framework, thus accepting and condoning the position that is was right to falsify and seal birth certificates to begin with. Once you accept the language of the “other” in an argument you automatically give power to their paradigm. It is far more powerful to deny their reality and create your own, especially when yours is that you are lied to.
Adoptees’ rights are not taken away when original birth certificates “sealed.” Your right to know to know the truth of your lives is taken when the state commits fraud and issues falsified birth certificates stating that you were “born to” people you are not biologically related to. This lie that your whole life is based on, puts your very life in danger. If one’s adoptive parents choose not to tell them that they are adopted, they could live all their lives and never even know there is an original birth certificate to try to obtain! Where is the equality in that? Conversely, adoptive parents who need or want to find birthfamily are also legally prohibited from doing so.
“Open records” terminology fails to attack the issue at its root: the issuance of the falsified birth certificate. BN won’t settle for anything but a “clean bill.” Vetoes and registries and all other restrictions, compromises, and limits on your rights are rejected…yet BN materials ONLY ask for “the opening [of records] to adoptees, upon request at age of majority.” Asking to be “allowed” “permission” to “peek” at the truth as adults gives a stamp of approval that this is “adult material,” something shameful, scary, and undercover that needs “protecting.” It’s like the civil rights movement having been about drinking from water fountains and sitting toward the front of buses – instead of demanding full equality. No one, other than those who are adopted, is issued a FALSIFIED birth certificate.
George Lakoff, who teaches “framing” also teaches the power of metaphor. The very clear metaphor of “opening sealed records” is opening Pandora’s box. It evokes peering into something secretive and locked up from view; something “special” occurring just for adoptees, which is the opposite of seeking equality. The public needs to be aware what was done by constantly replacing the phrase “open records” with “falsified birth certificates” in all your writing.
In keeping the focus on your plight as a human rights issue,
bring public attention too to the fact that one of the reasons the US has not ratified the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child is because of pressure from baby brokers who profit from keeping adoptions secretive. This is shameful and should be brought to the attention of the public at every opportunity to make the clear connection that the right to the truth of your identity is not an emotional issue, as it is still seen, but rather a basic, internationally recognized, human right.
Focusing on the LIE of a falsified birth certificate, instead of a “secret” being sealed away, takes the wind out of the argument of “protecting” another’s’ “privacy” as we do not protect lies. Exposing falsified birth certificates would be a shock to most people with no connection to, or knowledge of, adoption and would garner far more support than opening up, uncovering, a “secret” that might (allegedly) hurt someone. It brings much more sympathy to you as a discriminated against class of people, and does not pit you against mothers who allegedly have a stake in maintaining a secret or “seal.”
Why should adopted people continue to wait until they are told they are adopted and then wait until they are adults to have access to something that should be theirs to start with? Why couldn’t those adopted have a birth certificate like anyone else AND an adoption decree attached to it, with access to them both at any time other people in the same state are allowed access to theirs? Nothing short of that gives you true equality, so why settle for less?
Your birth certificates were not amended, they were falsified. Amended is defined as “to change for the better, improve.” When one of my sons (who I birthed and raised) was several months old, I changed his first name. I filed all the proper paperwork. For 32 years he has lived with a birth certificate that lists the first name I first gave him, with a line through it, and the new name written above it. Neither he nor I can obtain one that does not show the original name and the change. THAT is an amended certificate.
Accepting a lie is not in keeping with BN’s mission of being “dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees.”
Mirah Riben,
BN Lifetime member and author “shedding light …The Dark Side of Adoption”
The following are excerpts of the counterpoint was written by Rev. Laine Petersen, reunited adoptee, open adoption birthmother, and co-founder of BN:
"Let me start the response ...by stating that I am essentially in agreement with your call to end the amended/fasification of adoptees' birth certificates. I too beleive that the issuing [of] a new birth certificate is a dishonest practice that only contributes to the corruption of modern adoption. ...But... this reponse is about BN decided many years ago that it was going to fight for."
[NOTE: Even the Catholic Church changes course now and again - like not eating meat on Friday! However, the co-founder of BN does not disagree, just sticks to status quo...]
Petersen goes on to say that BN is "not a search group" - not that I had ever thought or said it was. No, it's allegedly a group that is fighting for the rights of adoptees. Isn't that what I was talking about - their right to a TRUE birth certificate?
Petersen continues: "Bastard Nation was founded with the goal of obtaining the one thing its members wanted: Our own damn birth certificates.
"We were not, and are not, going to get our own birth certifictes by championing your platform of 'one birth certificate - one bastard.' Our bith certificates have already been sealed, and a new policy regarding the 'amending' of birth certificates is not going to return them to us."
[I have no idea what she means by my platform of "one certificate - one bastard." Their way is one state at a time - my suggestion is nationally disallowing states to issue false certs to begin with. As for the fact that stopping the falsification of BCs would not help retrocatively, this is true. But it does not have to be an either/or. Why can't we do BOTH?]
WHY? Read on as Petersen gets to the root of the issue:
"...not every adoptee wants his/her adopted status stated on a document that has to be seen by so many people. Not every adoptee wants his/her “birth” identity made part of public record.”
So there you have it folks! BN is vested in protecting scerecy and lies. They are vested in protecting those who feel SHAME over their adoption.
That seems an odd priority for a group that is fighting for EQUAL rights and DIGNITY! It seems a direct contradiction to their goal of wanting things the same as those who are not adopted! It's a contradiction to them NOT being a search group, if all they want is their "information" when they are adults, with no conern about living a lie until then.
It's apparently OK to live your whole life under the false belief that you were born to your adoptive parents - until, if ever - your adopters decide to tell you. And if they don't - tough luck! You've lived and died a lie with no way of knowing that you have an original certificate to try to unseal. This is more acceptable than dealing with the horror of having someone know that you are really not the biological child of those raising you? WHY IS THAT?
How can they claim they are fighting for EQUALITY with non-adopted persons and accept birth certificates that can even give a FALSE date and place of birth?
As a mother who has supported open records, I am offended and greatly disappointed! I have encouraged mothers to come out of the closet and be public and do things like sign petitons and support legislation to give adoptees back their rights that were taken away. I designed the BirthParentProject.org to dispell the myth that [birth] mothers want anonymity...and all this time, it is the adoptees who want anonymity from us! I am offended, hurt and angry at this reply.
AND...I still think they are shooting themselves in the foot by asking for open records for adults anyhow, for all the reasons stated in my original article above.
THE SOLUTION: We all have short and long form birth certificates. In Scotland, the short form for adoptees appears the smae as anyone else's - it lists the adoptive parents as the parents. The long form indicates that they are adoptive parents. At age 16, adoptees have the right to obtain their original birth certificates. Before or after that, those that feel some stigma attached to being adopted "bastards" can use their short form for any legal purpose necessary.
In any case, why not ask for BOTH - an immediate end to falsification of bcs for all FUTURE adoptins, and retrocative return of access to the original for those adopted in the past?
I end with a question for the Reverend Laine Petersen: As a birthmother in an open adoption, would you be satisifed to wait until your chld was an adult to know him/her and vice versa??? Why then did you choose open adoption? Shouldn't every adoption be that way? Totally open? Truley open? Not built on lies?
Does your child know that he/she was not born to his/her adoptive parents? Does it cause him/her shame?
# posted by Senior Mom @ 4:53 PM 
Comments:
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I agree with you about our birth certificates. We have a minor problem. First we need to educate the non adopted crowd about adoption, records and such. Once we get nationwide acceptance of open records. Then we can get rid of the so-called amended birth certificate. I believe all names should be on it. I also believe all the documents concerning the adoption should be attached to it.
I have also encountered those (especially those that already have searched)that feel the records should be left alone. That the birth parent deserves privacy at all costs. I understand that one but my argument to them is the birth parent relinquished their rights thus also relinquishing the right to privacy. How do you feel about that? Am I right or wrong?
I have also encountered those (especially those that already have searched)that feel the records should be left alone. That the birth parent deserves privacy at all costs. I understand that one but my argument to them is the birth parent relinquished their rights thus also relinquishing the right to privacy. How do you feel about that? Am I right or wrong?
i think both should be done simultaneuosly for both strategic and time reaosns. waiting until 46 states are opened - that may NEVER happen!
by doing both simultaneously brings to the light of the public the facts. most people have NO IDEA that adoptees are issued a FALSE BC!! this would wake them up good!
by doing both simultaneously brings to the light of the public the facts. most people have NO IDEA that adoptees are issued a FALSE BC!! this would wake them up good!
that's why using the langauage of 'falsified BCs' is so much betetr than speakign in terms of "open records." open recprds implies invading someone else's privacy. falsfied tells it like it is.
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